Lean On
by GalInTheMoon
Summary: Clint Barton had saved her in more ways than he would ever understand. Body and spirit decimated after an on-mission accident Natasha steps up to return the favor. Rated for language and situation. Hurt, comfort, romance. HoHClint, Clintasha, Pre-Avengers.


**Lean On**

By: GalInTheMoon

 _Rating: T+ for language and situation._

 _Clint Barton had saved her life in more ways than he would ever understand. His body and spirit decimated after an on-mission accident Natasha steps up to return the favor. Story follows an, as yet untitled, a/u series but should stand alone._

 _Hurt/comfort/romance. HoHClint, Clintasha, pre-avengers._

 _At last I have finished the re-write of "To Make You Feel My Love"! I've changed the title and upped the rating, but the core of the story is the same. To anyone who faved or followed the previous version, I apologize. I could never get this one to a place I was satisfied with, but I think this is close. Thanks for understanding._

 _Also, may I recommend reading "The First" before or after this. It is in no way necessary but if you would like a little emotional context that story is set in the year prior to this and gives you a tiny glimpse of pre-disasters Clint and Natasha. It's also pretty short._

 _As always, thanks for reading! Reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome. It's amazing energy for wrestling into submission this writing thing that is currently kicking my back-side to next Tuesday._

 _Disclaimer: Characters belong to Marvel. No profit is made._

She sat in the back of the taxi watching without seeing as the old D.C. neighborhood ticked by. Brick house after brick house, picket fences, and a canopy of old trees passed by on either side of the often visited street without her notice. Her thoughts were already a block ahead at Coulson's where Clint was sheltered while he fought to return to the land of the living. It was a return that they had been told would probably not happen six months ago when a single misstep while on mission had triggered a landmine fitted with sonic tech. The sonic wave had rippled through his body, tearing tissue as it traveled. The percussion had been enough to crumble the already weak roof he had been standing on. One minute they had been joking over their com-link the next she was racing to find him.

She shivered at the memory as the taxi stopped. Phil's house was tucked back amongst large shrubs and old trees. Lovely and beguiling in its humility and attentive architecture. It was a home built to last, quietly mighty. Just like the man who occupied it.

She paid the cab driver and slid out. Making her way through the gated fence that arched above her head at the entrance, and slid it closed behind her. Her boot heels clicked on the sidewalk as she made her way past the blooming hydrangeas and their heady scent that surrounded the front door. Knocking as she looked around the street behind her. Instinct superseding the security she had come to feel here, if only for a moment.

"Just a minute." She heard Phil call from inside. A few seconds later there was movement at the door and Phil was standing before her. He smiled, "Nat. Come in." He stepped aside and as she walked past him he added, "You know you don't have to knock."

She looked back, "I know but it feels right." She wasn't ready to get too comfortable with the situation. Not yet, maybe never.

It was his turn to walk past her and he squeezed her arm as he did. She followed him as he turned while walking and said, "He's napping."

She nodded in understanding. Clint was still asleep more often than he was awake these days. His body, as well as his mind, demanding hours to recuperate from even the mildest of strain he placed on it.

"I was getting ready to have lunch. You want some?" Phil asked as they made their way to the updated kitchen.

"Sure." She sat on one of the stools beside the free-standing island where a half-made sandwich waited for Phil. She would have said no, but she had just gotten back from a mission. After twelve hours in the air, and three filling out paperwork, and another getting her gear checked in and squared away, she was starving.

Phil smiled at her as he began to put a second sandwich together before finishing his own. "You like mayo?" He asked. A quick nod no and a scrunched up nose was all he needed to skip over the jar.

"How's the week been?" She asked while spinning a vagrant mustard jar lid, avoiding looking up until Phil was silent a beat too long. "What?"

He shrugged, "Nothing."

"What is it Phil?"

"Nothing. That's it. Nothing has changed. It gets a little..."

"Discouraging." She assumed the rest after a moment of hesitation.

He pointed his butter knife at her, "That." and went back to working on the sandwiches, "It'll get better I know. I just, sometimes I wish I could jump forward a month now and then."

"See some progress." She had days and weeks without seeing Barton and yet when she returned she was often discouraged by the lack of progress in his recovery. For Phil, seeing him day in and day out, it must have felt like they were at a torturous standstill.

"Yeah." He gently squished the sandwiches together, handing Nat's over, and then taking his own to the other end of the island where another stool waited.

"Maybe there is an upside to the back-to-back missions you keep sending me on." She couldn't hide the bitter tone in her voice. She'd wanted to take a leave, to stay with Clint while he recovered, but her requests had been denied time and again. She took a bite.

Phil held up a finger as he finished a mouthful before speaking, "Not me."

"Through you." She put her sandwich down, "You sure you can't convince the council or Fury to let me have more time with him?"

"You know I've tried."

She frowned and took another bite, watching him across the island. She did know. There wasn't another person in the organization that had pulled more strings for them, or fought as hard. She wiped her mouth, "Have they said what their plan is? You know beyond the placating bullshit." How long would the council give him to return? How willing would they be to invest in his recovery? Would they just discard him? They had said otherwise, but their words felt empty in the wake of their betrayal.

The council had not only known of the danger Clint had walked into, they had chosen to keep it hushed. Sending in their own team within the mission to find the weapons tech while keeping the rest of them in the dark. As Team Delta and all others involved understood it was a civilian extraction. It wasn't until after the blast that the truth was out, that they were made aware of what he council knew was there all along. The council had risked their lives on a gamble to keep the weapons tech secret and for themselves. It was a risk that had failed disastrously for her partner.

"No but they'll take care of him one way or another. I'll make sure of it and I'll be damned if I don't do everything in my power to see him through whatever comes."

Inwardly Natasha smiled at his earnestness. He was good, and genuine, and so damn steadfast it made her heart ache for all the things she knew even his loyal determination could never change. "I know you will. If anyone can..." She drifted. Pessimism remained to suffocate the moment.

Though SHIELD claimed to be different she couldn't help but think their exit package would be less gold watch and more copper bullet. Maybe Clint was right. Maybe doubt and mistrust still came too easily to her, or maybe trust was still too hard to come by when dealing with the organization that had sent Clint to eliminate her five years ago. When both their lives had now proven to be little more than numbers on a mission sheet. When Clint was upstairs fighting for some semblance of the life he knew. Tomato, tomahto.

One thing she was certain of was the council had lost their chance to make this right the second they sent them out lacking information. Blind and unprepared. You can't make things right that should have never happened. Some things, like trust, simply remain broken.

"Penny for your thoughts." Phil was watching her across the island.

She shrugged and put her sandwich down again, "If at the end of this he..." She took a breath, "My loyalty is to Barton, not SHIELD. If he leaves, by choice or by force, I'll go with him. I'll stand by him through whatever retirement from SHIELD involves." She watched him, "I'm sorry."

He nodded, looking down at his plate, "Well, _that_ would involve a lot of paperwork." Phil believed one of these days Natasha would trust that there wasn't a knife at her back but the current situation had obviously renewed her apprehensions. He couldn't say he blamed her. "I've already told Fury the same thing." He looked up at her, "Well, not the loyalty part, but that if Clint can't return, for whatever reason, I'm out."

"Really?" She shouldn't have been surprised.

"Maybe the thought of losing two agents instead of one will push them to try, and I can't keep sending people out without trusting the orders coming down." He looked out the window over the sink for a moment before speaking, "You know Wilson?" She shook her head no, "His wife had a baby boy last night, their first, and I sent him out this afternoon. He'll be out of contact for days, on a mission for weeks, and he had less than four hours with the two of them. Four hours..." He drifted a moment. "I keep hoping that the intel was solid, complete. That I won't have to tell his wife...his son..." A young widow with a newborn son was a scenario that struck too close to the bone for Phil. He drifted, his thoughts torn, "I shouldn't have any doubt. I should know that we've done everything on our end to make the mission flawless. To have faith that our goals are all the same. I used to have that trust." He scoffed to himself, "I'm too old to be so naive."

"Like a broken mirror." Natasha seemed to be speaking to herself.

"What?"

"Just something I remember, a saying. Broken trust is like a mirror broken. You can put it back together but when you look at yourself, when you try to use it, you'll always see the cracks."

He took a deep breath and put his sandwich down and wiped his hands together, he shook his head, abandoning his lunch along with his appetite. "For now I'm pushing for Tech and Development to make him the best damn hearing aids known to man. Even if he's never cleared for missions. It's the least they can do."

"You think they will?"

"It'll cost them an agent if they don't and they know it."

"You're serious aren't you? You would leave."

"I will. If the council doesn't do everything in their considerable power to make some sort of reparations, something to make me believe this was a one-time mistake; That they'll never put their interests before an operatives life again, I'm done."

She took a deep breath. For her the council could magically fix every fiber in Clint's busted body and it wouldn't change the fact that their lives were clearly less important to the council than their own goals. They had proven as much and there was no going back, Phil's hope aside. But it was comforting to know they were in this together. She, as well as Clint, had an ally within and without the organization.

"I think I'll annoy him." She gestured over her shoulder toward the waiting staircase.

Phil nodded, taking their plates and walking them to the sink as she left the room. Behind her the plates crashed into the sink with a little more force than the usually composed Coulson would have allowed. She waited a moment, debating if she should return to him. When he was silent she decided to leave him be. Some storms needed to rage in solitude, but when she took the first step onto the staircase his voice sounded behind her.

"Natasha." He appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He was holding a glass of water and a paper cup, "Would you give these to him?"

"Sure." She stepped down and took the glass as well as the small cup, bottom covered with a rainbow of capsules. Looking them over, she asked, "What are they for?"

"A little bit of everything. Something for pain, for vertigo, some for nausea, anxiety..." Phil drifted, his jaw clinching and Natasha could feel the anger rolling off of him. It was as much a rundown of Clint's current condition as she would ask for and as much of one as Phil was momentarily likely to give. It must have felt the same from where he was standing because he nodded knowingly at her before he walked away. She swallowed her anger and continued to climb the stairs.

She took the steps slowly, collecting herself as the guest room Phil had handed over to her partner came ever closer. The door was cracked open an inch and the room was silent. She took a breath and opened the door. He was resting in a chair turned slightly towards the open window, his feet crossed on a pillow topped stool. Sunlight was streaming in illuminating his chest and bouncing off the contours of his relaxed features. To anyone unaware of what he had endured, the battle he had fought, he looked simply worn out, frazzled maybe. Sleeping he looked the twenty-something he was. Unlike when awake and the man who had barely escaped death, the man in the middle of the fight back, a man for whom the world had gone forever silent and whose axis had turned on its side was all too obvious.

She softly walked inside the room and sat on the corner of the bed closest to his chair. She watched his chest rise and fall a moment before looking out the window and to the green yard below. Phil's backyard was tidy to the point of being empty save for a single bench that rested in the middle of the yard. It was an odd placement, and it gave the impression it was more utilitarian than ornamental as it faced the trees lining the back of the fenced yard. Birds were swooping down to it before flying back to the trees where they bounced from one to the other.

She looked back to Clint. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to pull him close. She had been away so much. Sent on mission after mission to do little more than be another pair of eyes. Her skills never utilized, her presence unwelcome. She only wanted to be here, was only needed here. It had been three weeks this time. Being away from him felt like a betrayal of their partnership. Above and beyond that though he had saved her, was her friend, and within the past year had become her lover without any more strings or labels put on it than that. She found she needed to be here and whether she could admit it to herself or not she cared for him in ways that she hadn't allowed herself to feel for a very long time. Unable to resist it any longer she leaned forward and placed her hand over his own resting on the chair-arm.

His eyes opened after a minute, lidded and still heavy with sleep. "Tash." He smiled and straightened himself in the chair, blinking away the last grip of slumber before glancing out the window and back to Nat. "What time's it?" He watched her lips.

"One."

"You back?"

"Yeah. Twelve hours give or take. How are you doing?"

He frowned and she could see he hadn't understood the first half of what she'd said, still to gripped by slumber, and was sidestepping the last. "How was th'job?"

"Simple."

"Rookie shit?" He grinned.

She returned it, "Something like that."

He grew serious and looked away from her a brief moment.

She tapped his knee and gave him the glass of water and pills. He frowned but took them from her. He watched her, swallowing down the meds as she held her finger up, and pulled a small book from her jacket pocket handing it over to him. He looked over the tiny American Sign Language guide, flipping his thumb through the pages before shaking his head, "No."

She leaned forward and he glanced at her, "We could learn together." She offered.

He frowned, "Learn together?"

"Yes."

He handed the book over, "No."

"Why not?"

He swallowed, "Just no... not yet."

"When? Why?" She was frustrated. Her excitement at the prospect of opening a line of communication dashed. She had already learned a little on the flight back to D.C. and she had expected him to be on board. He could read lips even before before this had happened. He had watched the families in the crowds when he was a kid, eavesdropping on their conversations through cracks in the tents and from behind curtains. Sitting in on their lives all those years he had gotten it down to an art. It had even proven a useful skill on several missions, but now he was struggling to understand. Until he healed, until he was steady, he needed other options. She couldn't understand why he was rejecting it. It wasn't like him to back down.

He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, "I don't know."

She sat back, watching him, "It's fine." She put the book back in her pocket. "I'll keep at it and when you're ready..."

He nodded. He appreciated her determination to learn as much as her willingness to back off. He couldn't admit to her he was too tired, too confused, and his world was a landslide that shifted and rolled beneath his feet. He couldn't tell her he still had trouble deciphering the simplest of notes Phil would leave for him. That his memory was anything but reliable. He couldn't learn a language right now. He just couldn't and the thought of fumbling through, of her seeing how sluggish his mind was was not something he was ready to face.

His doctors had told him the fog, the confusion, the tidal waves of aphasia that hit him now and then would most likely stop once his battered tissue had healed, but it could also remain. It had already been six months more or less. How much longer before the damage done could no longer heal? He swallowed down the lump of emotion that rolled in his stomach and he looked away from her and out the window. He felt her hand upon his.

She watched him, could see the emotions that pulled at his features. She clenched her jaw once again at the anger that swelled within. He had saved her. He had risked it all to go against orders. He'd not only refused to assassinate her, but after that he had vouched for her becoming an operative instead of a prisoner. He had stood up for her against everyone else in the organization, an organization that had become something of a home for him. He'd risked it all. Seeing worth in her where even Phil or Fury could not. She knew it was what he did. She wasn't the first. Having been given a second shot himself he seemed determined to use it to pull others through. He deserved better than this.

She squeezed his hand, trying to get his attention. He squeezed back but didn't turn, she watched the muscles of his forearm tighten. Despite everything he had been through his archery honed muscles hadn't betrayed him. They were still there, waiting. There was some comfort in the realization.

"Clint." She said aloud, shaking his hand only mildly, trying to get his attention. He couldn't hear her, she knew. The specialists had tried to explain that what he could hear was very subtle and incomprehensible. Obliterating that limited range was his tinnitus, an unending ring that further stifled everything else. "Barton." She whispered, squeezing his hand this time, unsure why she needed this. Why she couldn't let him shut her out for even a moment. Maybe it was simply the press of her limited time and her own selfish aching need to reach him.

He didn't look at her, but squeezed her hand back, just _feeling_ her as he often did. He finally looked at her and swallowed, "I'll meet you downstairs?" He was asking her to go.

"I'll walk with you." She refused.

"Tash-"

"I'm staying with you Barton. Deal with it." She tried to smile, hoping it would at least reach the corners of her mouth even if her eyes, and her emotions, were a world away from the attempt.

He looked unhappy about it but put his hand out, "Help me up?"

She nodded and reached out for him, helping him stand. His vertigo, ever present, was more disorienting on standing and he swayed. She took both his arms, standing facing him. He took a deep breath and looked at her, eyebrows raised, "Sorry."

"For what?" She frowned.

"I don't know."

"Me either."

"You should go ahead. It takes forever to get my head to stop spinning." He gave her a self-deprecating grin.

"Good thing I have twelve hours and nowhere else I want to be." She slid her arm into his, as she stood beside him. They waited a minute before he was ready to walk toward the door.

They had crossed the line into something more than partners last year. Slipping into a secret affair that everyone had seen coming. She wondered if they hadn't though, would it be easier for him to lean on her now? Affection, above and beyond intimacy, was a double edged sword for both of them.

He stepped away, reaching for the door frame, "I got it from here."

"You sure?" She asked, but his head was turned focused forward toward his destination; The narrow steep staircase that loomed five feet away. Watching him he seemed a man staring down a dragon.

She knew that look. He would've rather crawled down the stairs than have her help him. This had clearly been an obstacle for him in the days she was away. A challenge, a goal, he was determined to conquer, but she'd be damned if she would walk away from him entirely. He looked at her a second before looking away, "I got it Nat."

She could feel his muscles shaking from the effort as he stepped away from the door frame. Against her own wants she stepped away, watched and waited. When he swayed she reached out again.

He pushed her hand away and repeated, "Damn it Natasha. Please! I got it." They stared at each other a moment before she let go of him again and walked halfway down the stairs, waiting. Her back turned she could hear him growl at the effort maneuvering down the first two steps required. She wanted to walk back to him, to grab his arm again and tell him to get over his damn stubborn pride. Instead she waited halfway down the stairs and listened. Her loyalty and respect for him over-riding her own concern and frustrations.

Eventually his hand gripped the hand-rail beside her. She looked over her shoulder to see his face was red and strained. He watched her a moment before saying, "See, nothin' to it."

She stepped aside to let him go, watching as he took one step at a time slowly, hand on the rail. His vertigo clearly giving him hell on the steep steps. She followed, staying back to not make him feel as if she were hovering. When he came to the bottom she looked him over, "You do that often?"

"What?" He looked confused as he leaned into the pyramid shaped finial, eyes remaining on her lips.

"Take the stairs alone."

"Well the entourage is not what it used to be." He smiled and wiped away a bead of sweat that was ready to roll down his temple. He slid down to sit on the bottom step and when she remained serious he looked up at her and added, "Give me a lil credit. I did fine."

"Fine?" She raised her eyebrows.

"If you could slip your feet into this brain I think you would be impressed right now. It's like a merry-go-round in here." Saying it out loud brought on a wave of nausea and he dropped his head a second to let it pass.

She watched him and waited. At the sound of their voices Phil came from the direction of the living room and his home office beyond. He looked at Clint, head still down, and then to Nat. "How's it going?"

She pointed back at the stairs, "You think him staying up there is a good idea? These things even make me feel off-kilter. I can't imagine him doing this more than once a day."

Phil took a breath, "We tried. He preferred the stairs to being down here."

"Why?" Natasha asked, glancing at her partner. His head still down.

Phil shrugged, "I don't know. The challenge maybe."

Unnoticed, Clint was watching, reading Phil out of the crook of his arm. He straightened unready to try walking but unwilling to be the center of conversation, "Getting some water." He pointed toward the kitchen and used the stair rail to stand and steady himself before he began to walk, passing the pair who watched him go. Phil looked at her, "He's doing better."

"That's better?" She raised her hand toward the direction he had gone.

Phil took a breath, "A little."

"Microscopic."

"Don't tell him that."

"Of course."

"Just saying it's-"

Phil's words were cut off when they heard a thud and a howl come from the kitchen, quickly followed by the sound of glass breaking. "Shit!" Clint yelled followed by a growl, "Shit."

Natasha and Phil ran around the corner to see him on the ground, holding his knee. Phil immediately began to sweep up the glass that was shattered across the floor behind him while Natasha dropped to one knee beside him.

"I'm fine." He pushed away and stood, hissing when he straightened his leg. He turned in a circle and pointed at a black apron hanging from a low hook. "That." He rubbed his knee, "Ah, caught my foot." He noticed Phil cleaning up the broken glass, "Shit, sorry Phil."

Phil waved it off, "It's fine."

He looked back to Nat, "This has nothing to do with anything."

"Okay."

He looked between the two. "I can clean up my own mess Phil."

They both said, "No." at the same time. He frowned catching the word on Natasha's lips and the shake of Phil's head. He couldn't help but be irritated at their quick dismissal. He may have been struggling but he could damn well sweep the floor couldn't he? Did he seem that incapable? "Yeah." He said to no one in particular as he slowly made his way across the kitchen, toward the back door, and the bench beyond.

Natasha began to follow him, but Phil stopped her.

"Let him go."

She held her hand out toward the direction Clint had gone. Still slightly disturbed by seeing him stumble. "What if he falls again?"

"He'll stand back up. Just let him go."

She looked between the apron and the broken glass. Doubting Clint's story. "What was that about?"

Phil shrugged, "I'm sure he pushed himself coming down the stairs. It happens."

"Often?"

Phil hesitated, weighing the value of this particular truth, "He pushes himself when you're here." Phil looked down at the glass on the floor. "There's usually a fallout. Not so immediate but..."

Towards the back of the house a door slammed. Natasha looked over her shoulder at the sound a second before turning back around, "I'm going to him." She grabbed another glass from the cabinet and filled it with water.

Phil watched and nodded, "Take my advice. Let him stumble, let him even fall. If you're too quick to help he takes it like a slap in the face."

"I noticed. I also noticed you're still trying." Natasha pointed out.

Phil smiled sadly, "Yeah, well he's family, y'know. You both are." and dumped the tray of broken glass into the garbage as he made his way out of the kitchen, Natasha watched him, leaning against the framed doorway. "I have to get back to the office." He checked his watch as he pulled his jacket down from the hook by the door. "He shouldn't need anymore meds until I'm home, but if I'm late the pills and the schedule are in the cabinet by the fridge. If the dizziness gets out of hand, or he gets a migraine, a cold towel on the back of his neck, and over his eyes seems to help for a while." He stepped out and looked back at her saying bye before closing the door.

Natasha watched the closed door. Watching for what she didn't know beyond the fact that everything certain was that way and everything not was the other. She took a deep breath before making her way across the kitchen, glancing at Clint's med schedule before making her way to the backdoor. There was a small window insert in the door and she paused, watching Clint who sat on the oddly placed bench, his back to her. Her hand wrapped around the door-knob but she waited again as he leaned forward, hands wrapping around his head, elbows finding his knees as his head dropped lower.

She pushed open the door and crossed the yard determined to not let him fight alone. She walked in front of him and dropped to her knees, taking one of his arms in her hand, she offered the glass of water. He didn't move and she waited a minute, staring at the top of his head, before she put the unnoticed glass on the ground.

"Barton." She whispered and kissed his head, eyes closed, before lowering her head to press her forehead against his. He was her partner, her best friend, and she felt that she owed every good thing in her life to him. He had pulled her from a life of running, of being an enemy to all, marked. She now had allies (whether she trusted them or not). She had those she could consider friends, even something of a family in he, and Phil, and Fury. She could almost believe she was fighting on the side of good. She could almost believe there was something good in her. All of it was thanks to him. For that his suffering would always be her suffering. His battles were her own. She could see no other way.

They remained forehead to forehead, eyes not meeting, for a minute. "I wish..." She whispered, her thoughts drifting. _I wish I could fix you._ Mankind had enough genius to find a way to destroy instantly, carelessly, why was there not enough to find a way to put back together what was broken quicker than this? Why was mending a million times harder than destruction? She raised her head to kiss him again and found him looking at her, his eyes rimmed in red.

She squeezed his hands, "Let me in. Talk to me. Please."

He dropped his head again, "How the hell am I gonna do this Nat?"

It wasn't just the loss of one of his senses. It was the fog that never seemed to dissipate, the dizziness that eased only to come roaring back to nauseating affect. It was the world that would never stop ringing. The endless fight to heal that was still not even close to enough. The before and the after. The uncertainty, the isolation of it all. The anger that hit him as hard as the grief. The life on hold. The broken glass on the floor and all that remained shattered within. He dropped his head again, ashamed at his own raw emotions.

He'd never expected an easy life, had never asked for one. But he had always known he could rely on himself, to trust he would find a way through at the very least, no matter what was thrown his way. Now he'd lost his self-assurance. The one person he'd always relied on was unreliable, possibly even lost, and he didn't know how to to start leaning on anyone else.

She could see it, more helpful though, she understood.

When he looked back up she said, "I don't know." She shifted closer to him, "I don't, but you're not alone in this. Not this time. Not this fight." She squeezed his hand, "Don't push us away. And call me selfish but I need you Hawkeye. I can't do this without you."

He shook his head. "You don't need me Tash. You never did."

She leaned back, watching him, slightly dumbfounded that he seemed to really believe that. "To be so clever Barton you're a real idiot."

"That so?" He grinned wearily.

"Yeah." She leaned forward again, "I'm only here because of you and I remain for _you_. No one, nothing else. I'm here. Let me carry some of the load."

He swallowed and looked away from her. Shutting down the conversation a moment. His thoughts jumbled. Did he have any fight left? He'd been fighting from the moment he came out of the induced coma. Fighting harder than he ever had before. Every moment, every second had been a battleground. Now that he was here the rest of his recovery felt like facing Everest after swimming across an ocean. He wanted to do it for her, for himself, even for Phil, but it felt so damn impossible. He closed his eyes as they began to burn. He couldn't do this. He couldn't feel this right now. His heart began to race, the pressure was mounting in his chest, and he couldn't get his thoughts to follow a straight-line.

It started in his fingers, and then oddly enough, his earlobes. A tingle that signaled the start of a panic that would make his head spin, and wrench the breath out of his lungs. Accustomed to it he braced himself.

Natasha watched him stiffen, could see his breathing change, and took his hand. Placing it on her chest she pushed his fingers into the hollow of her throat, his palm against her beating heart. He could feel her pulse and her slow and steady breathing. After a moment his breathing naturally began to fall in pace with her own as did his pulse, slow and steady. His world coalesced into the two of them. One heart following another. His spinning head felt more manageable and the ringing world seemed hushed, pushed back for a blessed moment. He could breathe again.

His fingers began to tingle as her voice traveled up her chest and made the well in her throat vibrate like the skin of a drum. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was watching him, repeating the same words over and over, "I'm here."

He leaned forward and kissed her, "I know."

"This is _our_ fight." She squeezed his hand. "Your battles are my battles Hawkeye. Let me fight. Please."

"I don't know...Nat I don't know how."

"Stay. Right here, right now, and let me in. Look at me. Lean on me. Rage if that's what you need. Let me carry the overflow." She shifted, "I'm not going on another mission until you're back out there with me. I'm not leaving you again."

"Nat, you can't refuse to-"

She wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, "What are they going to do?"

He shook his head, thinking, "Split up the team."

"That's already happening. I'm not leaving."

"Nat you gotta go out there and do what we do...for both of us." He tucked her hair behind her ear.

She swallowed, "This is where I need to be."

He took a deep breath and pulled at her to sit beside him, "What if I don't make it back?"

Her eyes turned to ice, "Don't say that."

"There is a chance. You gotta accept that no matter how hard I... _we_ try, it may not happen."

"Then I'm done."

"Done? With SHIELD?"

"Yes."

"And then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"You gonna work contracts or, or what get a nine to five? Come on think about it. You're made for this life and if you're not with SHIELD you'll be against them."

She straightened at the unintentional sting of his words, "Against you? Is that what you're saying?"

"Hell no. It's the two of us all the way. What I'm saying is don't throw away your opportunity to do some good just to look out for your dumb ass partner who doesn't look where he's walking."

"Clint-"

"Get back out there. For both of us. I'll get this healing thing under control." He leaned forward and kissed her.

She watched him a moment as he pulled away from her, "How is it I came out here to support you and I end up with the pep talk?"

"Guess you needed it."

She smiled and searched his eyes. They were still red-rimmed and glistening, but he was trying to encourage her, to lift her despite his own struggle. "I've missed you."

"I want to be out there with you. I wish every damn day that I had your back."

"Maybe it's my turn to have yours."

He squeezed her knee, "I uh, I don't know if..." He struggled with the words as much as his emotions, "I'm not giving up."

"I know." She laid her hand over his, "I know."

"I just don't want you to think I've stopped trying." He nodded to the small book in her pocket, and the offer he had turned down earlier.

"I know Clint. I do. It's hard. I understand."

She couldn't, not really, not this. Hard didn't even come close to it. "Nat it's..." Impossible, excruciating, soul crushing. He could go on but didn't. Nothing good would come from that spewed confession. She may have asked him to rage if that's what he needed, but she couldn't know the floodgates that would open. She couldn't know the weight she was asking to carry. "Just keep the faith." _Don't give up on me._

"In you Barton? I've never lost it." She was solid, unwavering.

"That so?" He grinned.

"And never will." She smiled back.

"You say that now."

"I'll say it tomorrow...and the day after, and after...You saved me Clint. I plan on returning the favor."

"Well, maybe I can take a rain check on that for now. I plan on saving myself this time around."

She leaned forward, "It's not a one time offer hotshot."

He swallowed and fell silent.

She rubbed his shoulder, "Walk me inside?"

"Yeah."

Together they walked arm in arm back to the house. To an outside observer it would be impossible to tell who was leaning on whom.

The End

(and the middle)


End file.
